My Favorite Road
May 2025
I get that question a lot. It’s natural, since folks know I’ve driven every mile on the Missouri highway map.
To a Steelville Chamber of Commerce banquet I gushed that Highway 8 is a pretty ribbon through town, looping past Maramec Springs.
But my favorite?
Driving Highway 6 into the Green Hills toward a cherished Mexican restaurant in Milan, my car began squishing hundreds of apples strewn along the highway. Road apples. They make the Green Hills green. The advice of Harry Truman came to mind: “Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.”
Sage advice. Fun road. But not my favorite.
A Rolla radio interviewer guessed that my favorite road might be Route 66.
“Love the Mother Road.” Alas, not my favorite.
I call Highway 36 The Avenue of the Greats. Nobody else does. That’s okay. In my mind, Highway 7 is the Tightwad Turnpike. Route 71 is Bushwhacker Boulevard. Don’t overlook the Cooter-Corder Corridor. And Highway 5 is the Fox Trotter.
There are so many great roads. And each road has its own soul. From Blues Alley (Highway 61) to the Blue Eye Byway (Route 86), the Route of the Canoes (Highway 19) and Little Swiss Parkway (Highway 143 past Sam A. Baker State Park).
The Baldknobber (Route 76 leaving Branson in either direction) offers spectacular views in spring and fall. The Toad Suck Trail (Highway 125 south to Arkansas) gets its name from its eventual destination: the Toad Suck Ferry across Bull Shoals Lake.
Some of those nicknames, I confess, are my own.
Cascading past Johnson’s Shut-Ins, looping around Taum Sauk Mountain, Highway 21 earns the appellation Ozark Trail. Running parallel to the Mighty Mississippi, The Great River Road along Highway 79 has spawned the Provenance Project with 50 Miles of Art.
Some roads have multiple personalities. Before it bore children west, the Mother Road was the Wire Road. The Avenue of the Saints changes character south of St. Louis, giving birth to Blues Alley. And take your pick, Highways 94 and 100 frame the Missouri River, and share the Lewis & Clark Trail.
All historic. But not my favorite.
My favorite road always will be Highway 17, for one special reason. The road winds south from Eugene, past the Tuscumbia graves of The Beverly Hillbillies creators Ruth and Paul Henning. It crosses the beautiful Osage River on a brand new bridge. Thanks, Obama. The road later joins the robust Roubidoux Creek through Waynesville, unfolding toward Houston, Missouri, home of Emmett Kelly, the world’s greatest clown. That’s a lot of fun and history. But that’s not why Highway 17 is my favorite road.
Long before it crosses my favorite Ozark stream (the upper Jack’s Fork), Highway 17 approaches the tiny Texas County town of Success, Missouri.
The Road to Success. My favorite road.